


Salt and Iron

by Alley_Skywalker



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Coda, Gen, Grief/Mourning, House Greyjoy, Missing Scene, Sibling Love, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-21 14:06:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18703843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alley_Skywalker/pseuds/Alley_Skywalker
Summary: Yara finds out about her little brother's death at the Battle of Winterfell.





	Salt and Iron

_...I want you to know that your brother died a hero and we owe him everything. He was good and brave and I am proud to have called him my friend. My Lady, I send you your brother’s ashes with the full understanding that this does not truly comport with your beliefs and cultural traditions. For that I am beyond sorry, but with the wars and present situation of things, transporting your brother’s body so far would have been tricky business on the best of days. Now, I am afraid, it is quite impossible. We had little choice as to what to do with our dead – the carnage you would not believe. Do forgive me, My Lady…_

It went on for a couple more lines before concluding in Lady Sansa’s loopy, delicate signature, but Yara could not bring herself to read further. Her hands began to shake and she could feel the sting of tears welling up under her eyelids. She blinked hard, trying to compose herself. The ironborn did not cry, did not show expressive displays of emotion. That was a difficult habit to break, even with no one around to see and with her heart so heavy she thought it may tear out of her body and shatter on the stone floor at her feet. 

 Part of her hated Lady Stark. A large part of her. The Starks had taken Theon from her and her family –  _his_ family – before. Now they had done it again, though perhaps through no wish of their own. Her father’s voice, ingrained into the farthest part of her mind, whispered that the ironborn way was to wreak havoc, to get revenge, to rage on the shores and terrorize all those who had brought her this grief. 

 But Yara knew better. Theon had chosen to go. She had let him. And he had gone not simply for the Starks, not in defense of the Starks’ private goals or vendettas. Theon had gone to save the world. It was just a bitter irony that that meant going to Winterfell. 

Theon had once told her that Lady Sansa was beautiful. Yara had wondered, with the amused jealousy of sisters, if that had anything to do with his desires. Theon had fancied redheads best, as far as she could ascertain his tastes. 

 But that was all folly and in the past. Theon had no more fancies, no more desires. And Yara wanted to scream with the pain and injustice of it all. 

 Her hands still shook as she set aside the letter and picked up the small, iron urn that had been enclosed. Perhaps she should be grateful that the raven had made the journey and not dropped her brother’s remains somewhere in a lonely greenlands forest. 

She had always been one for morbid thoughts. 

The urn was simple and fit into Yara’s hands neatly. She cradled it as she would a tiny, newborn animal. It was all she had left of her baby brother now. And even this she must commit to the sea. She could hear its roar just outside, somehow louder now, beckoning. The Drowned God knew he was about to receive one of his own. 

She tried to recall if she ever told Theon she loved him. She had told him she needed him. She had told him he was her brother. But had she ever told him that she  _loved_ him? 

 Sentimentality was not the Iironborn way. 

 And yet. 

 Yara closed her eyes and pictured Theon’s face: the full range of emotion from cheeky amusement and delight – memories mostly belonging to their childhood, cloudy and just barely there – to vulnerable despair and brazen determination. She could feel the phantom warmth of his skin against her hand as she touched his face and hear the faint echo of his voice –  _what is dead may never die._

She had been naive enough to wait and to hope. To think that he would come back and kiss her cheek and smile in that way he had once done when they were children. She had dared to imagine a future for them. That she would take his hand and ask him to stay. She would be Queen and he would be her truest adviser, her most trusted commander. 

The iron urn was cold in her hands and Yara clutched it as though she could make it warm, breath life into it with just her thoughts and her touch and her will. She would be willing to repent for every wrong word she had ever uttered to him, any misguided deed or judgement. If only it would make a difference. 

 She was ironborn. She must know better. 

Yara began to laugh so that she might ignore the tears running down her face.


End file.
